Kevin Haas covers the city of Rockford and the Rockford Park District.

Former Rockford collector's rare clock sells for record $6.8M

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By Kevin Haas

Kevin Haas covers the city of Rockford and the Rockford Park District. This blog is the place to find out about whatís going on with those governments, their latest projects/proposals and decisions on how they spend your tax dollars.

ROCKFORD — The world’s most expensive clock, which was once a part of Rockford industrialist Seth G. Atwood’s immense collection, has set a new auction record for any clock and second-highest price for any timepiece at auction.

The Duc d’Orléans Breguet Sympathique sold for a record more than $6.8 million Tuesday at Sotheby’s auction in New York, according to Forbes.

The roughly 177-year-old clock broke its own auction record. In December 1999, Atwood sold 81 pieces for a combined $28.3 million at auction. The clock fetched more than $5.7 million, a record until Tuesday’s auction.

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The piece was once part of the collection at The Time Museum, which Atwood founded in 1971. The museum was inside the Clock Tower Resort and focused on a history of time measurement. It closed in March 1999, when United Realty Corp., a company owned by the Atwood family, announced the sale of the resort and the museum, according to Register Star archives. Atwood died in February 2010 at age 92.

The only timepiece to ever get a higher asking price than the rare clock was also a part of Atwood’s collection. A 1933 Henry Graves pocket watch was sold at Sotheby’s 1999 “Masterpieces from the Time Museum” auction in New York for more than $11 million.

The clock is worth about $2 million more than the entire building where it was once housed, thanks to declining real estate values. The Clock Tower Resort was sold at auction in April 2011 for more than $4.8 million.